When I was growing up the Chicago Reader was a source of popular culture and cutting edge cartoons. I remember one that was a virtual trip to Comiskey Park- the ball park where the Chicago White Sox played. The cartoon consisted of a drawing of a steel beam that you could cut out and assemble into a column with instructions to hang this from the brim of a hat right in front of your face- in effect wherever you looked you would see a post and not the baseball game. Listening to public radio the other day I was reminded of that cartoon. It seems that Mohammad is the most popular name in the world. It surprised me until I was confronted with the small frame of reference with which I view the world. I don’t know anyone for whom English is not their first language, I am not aware that I know anyone who was not born in the United States. When I look around my office and often around the city I live in I don’t see anyone without the same colour skin that I have. With the internet we now have the ability to find a world view that encompasses the entire world and doesn’t just reinforce the world view that we already have. Google maps can show us not only where we are in space but show us the world around us. Let us hope that the internet will be used to draw our eye from what is close at hand and back to the horizon that beckons us onward. The sun setting isn’t the end of a day but the beginning of a journey, calling us.

Thank you for your comment. It seems in a way that we are fated to see more of what we already see- Hopefully we will use this technology to open our eyes. Do you think the internet has expanded your world view?